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Chapter Text

Credence had always seen lights and sometimes echoes of things that were long gone or things that might yet come to pass. It wasn't until the very moment all these...these wizards were firing at him, Mr Graves and the strange red haired man and Miss Goldstein screaming at them to stop, to not hurt him, that he finally understood it even if it was just for a moment.

He understood, that everything was connected. He understood that time in and off itself was just another rule, another barrier, something, that had to be obeyed only by those not powerful enough. Quite like death.

He also understood, that he was powerful.

Mr Graves had said so. He had called him powerful and Credence had even seen the look of fear and appreciation in his eyes, when he had turned around, away from Modesty and towards him. When he had offered him to teach him control. Control. In a moment when he had been more thoroughly broken, than his mother (not his real mother, his real mother had had magic...but they were both dead now and he was alone, he knew he was…), Mr Graves had given him this insight, even though Credence had not wanted to control it then. He had wanted to let go, to lose himself.

But now...now he suddenly knew that he did not want to die. There was more to life than this miserable thing that it had been. He had thought once, that Mr Graves would show him that. He had been kind. He had been so kind. His kindness still burned in Credence, fed a hunger, a longing, even though the man had betrayed him.

Credence became smoke in the fire of the witches, something without form and body, just soul and magic and longing. He looked at the red haired man and he saw time in all it's twists and he did not want to end here. There had to be an other beginning. So he went back. He could not flee in any physical direction, so he chose to flee through time itself, backwards on winded paths, clawing to the existence of this man in front of him, this man who seemed kind, like Mr Graves had once been.

He was just magic and mind and he was gone, he was FREE, he just...needed a body now, needed flesh to hide in to rest. He found it. He found a low summer evening, wet and far away. He found a desperate young boy, small and freckled and full of scratches, pleading with a lifeless, small body, covered in black fur.

“PLEASE!” Newt was crying. He cried and he pressed the little animal close to his heart. He had saved it from some kids whose parents were discussing Hippogriff stuff with Newts Mom but it wasn't breathing and he didn't know what to do. He had tried, he had really tried and now he was just pleading with it, hoping for a wonder.

The little thing blinked then and looked up at him, intelligent eyes searching for something in his face. Newt squeaked and pressed the furry thing against his chest, nearly pushing all the breath out of it again.

Well., thought Credence, while the boys tears and snot were running into his fur. Look at that. I finally have a little brother.

*~*~*

The shock came later. Credence did not know what to do or what had happened. When Newt brought him home – he told him on the way that his name was Newton Scamander and that he would look after him and that he would learn how to care for him properly and nurture him back to health – he started scratching and biting and then hid in the darkest and calmest corner in the house he could find, ignoring the tentative pleads of Newt who was searching for him and obviously distressed.

Credence was...a thing. He had seen himself in a mirror on the way down and he remembered the body before he had entered it. A mole. Not quite a mole, but close enough. Mother would have called him a black, furry, tailless rat.
He whimpered and put his paws over his eyes. What had he done? He was a MOLE now he was… He had used magic. So much magic. And now a witchs son was searching for him, whimpering and PLEADING again and he really did not know what to do about that and he was alone and...and…

He remembered the rage. He remembered losing all control and killing mother and Chastity. How could he have done such a horrible thing?
His mother was dead. His sister was dead. His little sister feared him, as she should. And Mr Graves had betrayed him, had lied to him...he had not wanted him, he had never felt anything akin to love for him, he had been a fraud and – and…

...and Credence was alone now. Utterly and terrifyingly alone.

“There you are.”

The boy laid down in front of the cupboard under which Credence had hidden himself. He smiled. It was a crooked thing, his freckles all of the place, the hair in disarray and a twinkle in his eye. There was still snot and tears on his cheek. Mother would have given him soup and called him disgusting behind his back, maybe offered the opinion, that he wouldn't make it through the winter.

“I am very sorry for startling you.”, the boy said. “I do not know yet, what you are and how I have to talk to you. The Hippogriffs get really cross if you do not get the protocol right but there I know the protocol and with you I don't and I see, that I must be a strange being for you, especially after other members of my species attacked you. So, I'll try to be as non threatening as possible and then we will both work it out, yes?”

He kept bubbling nonsense in the mimicry of a soothing voice, lying flat on his back, his hands pointed upwards and as relaxed as possible for a boy whose legs would not stop twitching.

The boy stayed there for hours. His mother and brother came and talked to him, but he just layed there, stared at Credence and assured him, that he did not want to do anything to him. After two hours of this, Credence came to one conclusion: Firstly, the boy was even more lost than he was, which was quite the achievement. Secondly, that the world might very well crash Newton Scamander with its wickedness.

It was beginning to get dark. Newt had finally succumbed to sleep, snoring softly. Credence shuffled out of under the cupboard and towards the boy. He climbed up and then under his vest, were it was warm. He could feel Newts heartbeat and pushed his claws a little bit into the shirt underneath him, before he went to sleep himself. Maybe it would not be so bad, if they were lost together.

*~*~*

He was safely seated inside Newts pockets when his mother prepared breakfast the next day. She did this with her wand and little flicks of it, that made things fly around. She hummed while doing it. There was a memory, the one memory he had of his mother: She had made the tea cups sing and dance for him, a smile on her wary face. It had always been the one happy memory he had had until he had met Mr Graves. It was why he had whished for magic so badly. He knew, that it was evil, but...but it was also, maybe, what could give him this feeling of being home again. Of wonder. Contentment.

He was wicked for not being content with what mother had provided them with, he knew that. But...this here, this warm and happy breakfast, the laughing older boy and the man who read a newspaper with moving images...Newt, happily babbling about...it did not seem so wicked to him after all.
Credence accepted the little pieces of pancake, that Newt provided him with and then stretched and yawned. Maybe this would all somehow work out.

*~*~*

He still had outbursts of magic, but it did not concern anyone. When he made something fly or explode, everyone just assumed that it was Newts doing.
It was a relief.

He stayed close to Newt most of the time, but sometimes he ran away to explore. There was just so much to SEE in this house, on these grounds and Credence enjoyed it immensely, even though Newt was always close to a fit when he finally managed to find him again.

They learned together, he and Newt, about Nifflers. They weren't creatures that were very well researched, as it seemed. Credence could feel its instincts in his flesh and brain and he let it overtake sometimes. He found that he deeply enjoyed everything that was shiny and that he could put in a pocket in his fur that seemed to be utterly bottomless. (Much, much later Newt and his family would make a case with a spell on it that resembled this pocket in many ways.)

When Newt was 11 years old, he went to Hogwarts. He took Credence with him, of course.

Hogwarts was...it was marvelous. Credence had become accustomed to a lot of magic things by living with the Scamanders, but this was just… It was stunning. And it paralyzed him with fear in the beginning.
It really helped, that Newt was sorted into Hufflepuff. The common room and the bedrooms were cozy and full of warm, homey smells. In the beginning, Credence often hid there, before he was brave enough to go to classes inside of Newts pockets. He started to realize that this was...an opportunity. A big opportunity. There was still all this magic inside of him and he remembered…

I can help you control it, Credence...

He read the books when it was dark. His eyes could easily adjust and he would read and read and read. In the beginning, the books about spells and potions did not help him very much. He could not hold a wand, so what could would that do him?
Credence read more about magical theory about how magic worked and then he would try to meditate, to search for things. He could feel his magic now but it was a skittish thing and so dark at the edges. Sometimes it felt, like it was eating at him, a dormant but still dangerous animal.

*~*~*

He did not care for Leta Lestrange. Not. One. Bit. He made his opinion of her very clear by stealing all her jewelries and then hissing when he had to give them back. Newt would then smile at Leta, shy and unsure. “I guess he likes you.”
“You are a bad liar, Scamander.”
At least this was ONE thing, she and Credence could agree on.

He understood, where Newt was coming from, though. Newt would talk to him, whisper in the dark of the night, told him everything that went wrong and that he did not understand. Newt and people, that would never work out. He felt foreign and alone, unless he was with his creatures and sometimes with Leta, another outcast. Credence understood this feeling of being alone in the world, maybe of being unworthy and unwanted by everything around. So he nestled against Newts throat and gave what insurance he could give in this form.

It occurred to him, much later, that Newt might be the first real friend he had ever had.

*~*~*

“I am allowed to have pets!” Newt pressed him against his chest, defending him against the librarian, who had found Credence with the forbidden books, putting some very shiny ones inside his bottomless fur pocket.

“This is not a pet!”, the woman whispered. She always whispered. It creeped Credence out, because this kind of whispering always made him think of beatings that would follow, of words that were hushed, so that the Lord would not witness them.

“There is no clarification what kind of pet.”, said Newt stubbornly, without looking up.

The next generation of firstgraders received a different letter than the ones before them: They were allowed to bring a pet. Either an owl, a cat or a toad.

*~*~*

“You always just call him the Niffler.”, Leta said, watching Credence who was searching the room for interesting or shiny things.

“Because he is a Niffler.”

“You have names for ALL the creatures, Newt. You named the flubberworms. He is your very first creature, you had him for ages and you do not have a name for him.”

Newt deflated and sighed. It was such a miserable sound, that Credence came close to him and offered him the medaillon he had gotten out of Letas pocket. She squeaked and took it back from him. Just as well. She had a lot of shiny things, Credence could take.

“I know. It is just...” Newt started to pet him with two fingers and then shook his head. “No name ever seems to fit. It's easy with everyone else, but…not with him.”

*~*~*

It first worked when Newt was in his fourth year at Hogwarts.
Credence was in a lonely classroom, in front of a mirror. He had cast a light – wandless magic, strange and different still, but something he had managed after a few months in Hogwarts with the books and the lessons and his own mind working endlessly on problems.
The transfiguration book layed on a table, open on a random page. He just wanted it here to keep him company. He had tried this so many times by now and now...finally…

He felt his bones and flesh shift and make room, change, when the magic worked him over, made him taller… He blinked with eyes, not as good as the ones he had grown accustomed to. He stared into the mirror and saw a young man with an awkward bowl cut, pale skin and a Hogwarts uniform. He had chosen Ravenclaw and marvelled, that this had worked as well, that he had not just managed to get the face of Credence Barebone back but that he could also transform his fur into clothes he had never owned.

He was an animagus. He could change into a human.

Chapter Text

Being able to turn into a human made it easier to learn. He would sneak into the library at night, turn into a man and then read, being able to use his fingers to turn pages. He would do other things too after a while. Hogwarts was supposed to host a ball and Newt was training dancing, asking for his opinion. The boy wanted to be good before he asked Leta out. He stumbled over his own feed the whole time, of course and he did not get enough sleep. There were times, when Credence got him back into his bed in the middle of the night after Newt had passed out in some classroom, just taking a little break.

Credence would put him to bed and pull the covers over him, before he turned back into the Niffler and made himself at home on Newts chest, watching the boy mumble in sleep. He felt a strange kinship for him, something that went deeper than what he imagined friendship to be like. Newt was lost. He had his family, strange and eccentric as they were. He belonged with them, surely, and he was so at home with the creatures in his care, but with his classmates...he was always far away and he did not want that. He wanted to be close, to be normal. He was asking himself (and sometimes Credence) what was wrong with him.

Credence remembered being like that. Living in the shadows, floating through life, from beating to beating, never getting any attention out of orders and punishment at home. He had not fit. He had had no purpose and he had never seen much sense in his life apart from keeping the monster inside him hidden.

He sometimes asked himself how life would be now, if it would be different at all. He was still hiding. Hiding in fur, hiding deeper than anyone had ever done before probably. What would it be like, just...being human all the time? Going to a ball, perhaps.
Credence stood in front of a mirror and tried the steps he had seen Newt try earlier on. He didn't fare much better and the person in the mirror seemed stranger to him than before. It was like he could see the mask for what it was.

Credence stared into the mirror. He had changed his hair at some point, making it longer. Now he gave himself the badly executed bowl cut and he changed his ravenclaw robes into the old uniform he had worn to give out pamphlets and soup.
It didn't look right. His FACE did not look right. The uniform missed many details and started shifting.
“I don't remember.”, he said, whispering it with a voice, he wasn't sure was his own. He could not remember what he had looked like, once upon a time. What I WILL look like. What I will have looked like... He surely could not remember exactly how his uniform had been.
He stared at himself or at the stranger, at the make-belief and the sob that was starting in his throat was painful and choking. He whimpered and changed back and did not put on flesh for days afterward and even then he avoided mirrors.

*~*~*

“I am sorry, Newt, but I already have a date for the ball.”
“Oh. Yes. Quite right.” His gaze was flickering everywhere, his fingers white and red from kneading them to much.
“I am going with Orion Black. He's...it's a very good family. Basically my own.”
“Oh, I understand. Don't you worry.” Newt smiled. It was a brittle and hurt thing.
“OUCH!” Leta screamed and the moment was gone. “It bit me! Newt, I keep telling you that there is something WRONG with this one!”

Newt cradled Credence close to his chest, his face apologetic but at least for the moment not quite as haunted as before. “I'm sorry! You know he is totally harmless! Something must have upset him...”

Leta frowned. Credence for his part started purring and pushed his head against Newts chest.

*~*~*

Newt, of course, was an idiot, but it started to seem that all boys were, as long as a girl was involved. Credence watched this development with a sense of wonder. He felt like Newt, watching the mating rituals of some obscure creature.

Credence himself had never chased after any girls. Of course not. Mother would have had his head! It would have been sinfull.

It occurred to him though, that he was in a school for witches and wizards and that he himself was an unnatural creature that could wear the face of a man without really being one. Chasing girls seemed surprisingly normal, innocent even.

It also seemed like the normal thing to do.

He watched the boys and girls of Hufflepuff and the other houses and they were actually quite cute while at it, sneaking glances and blushing while holding hands. Sometimes it was sad and pathetic, like it was with Newt, but then again he seemed so happy the day after he and Leta had kissed after the Occamies had hatched.

Credence tried to do the math in his head, to determine how old he actually was. He had been 19 years old when he had found his way into the Niffler. Back then, Newt had been 8. Now he was 16. So...Credence was 27, right?

He did not feel like 27. He still felt like a child. A lost one at that. He had not felt like 19 when he had been that. Mother had always told him that he had to be the man in the house, but she had told him that since he had been 12 years old and she had beaten him too and denied him supper or ordered him to pray for hours. He had been a child still. He probably still was. He just did not know how to grow up.

Maybe the key was to do it Newts way: Observe and integrate. He could observe normal teens and then do what they did and maybe he would grow up like that, just a bit late. It wasn't like he had anywhere to be for the next few years.

Chasing girls, pining, falling in love. That seemed like quite the big part of the whole growing-up-experience.

So he tried. He paid attention to the girls and tried to decide which one was cute or lovely or whatever else it was, which would caught his fancy. Mother had always been so strict with him, so adamant that he should not look, that he was sure, that something would just happen, a spark of sin, maybe even with some fanfare or something like that.

Nothing.

He stared at the – according to the boys – prettiest girl in school, followed her around a bit and still: Nothing. He was frustrated enough, that he stole her earrings. They were shiny and cradling them close, putting them into his fur pocket made him feel a bit more at ease, even though Newt later found them and gave him a stern talking to.

It occurred to Credence that the problem might be, that the girls were girls. They were young. Very young. He himself was...maybe...27. Somehow. So it would have been creepy and even wrong had he found of the girls interesting in a romantic or sexual way.

He started watching the teachers. The professor for Old Runes was quite young for a teacher, maybe in her early thirties. Credence started to follow her around a bit, to watch her. Nothing happened. He got a bit upset with himself and followed her into her rooms and watched her change and even that did do nothing for him. He didn't even feel ashamed because it was just so...nothing.

THIS was what his mother had been afraid of? What she had thought would lead him astray?
She had beaten and humiliated him until he had KILLED HER because she had thought that this was, how sin would worm it's way into his heart?
Maybe there was something wrong with him, more than just the magic, which felt feral and dark compared to everything the students and teachers did. Maybe he was so fundamentally wrong that he couldn't feel like a normal human being would. Maybe he was a creature.

He thought like that while skittering through the castle, trying to get back to Newt and maybe catch a few hours of sleep, when he came across a student who had been caught by a professor while out after curfew.

“5 points from Ravenclaw, young man.”, the professor said but he smiled at the same time. He put a hand on the neck of the boy, produced a candy out of his pocket to offer it to him. “Off you go, Mr Nelson. Next time wait till morning to look for your coat, alright?”

Credence just stood there and stared. He remembered. He remembered Mr Graves and he remembered his hands on his cheeks, his face so close, so warm, his voice rough and urgent, the whole man a solid rock, comfort, guidance – his heart started galloping and he was quite sure, that he would have gotten sweaty hands had he been in human form at hat point.

He was startled out of his reverie, when the caught boy mumbled “Yes, Professor Dumbledore” and then turned around to go to his common room.
Credence did not know how he found his way back to the Hufflepuffs, to Newt. He just knew that he stayed in Newts pocket for the next days, just thinking, remembering, wondering.

His own face isn't that clear to him and he has long forgotten what mother had looked like. But Mr Graves is still there. He can remember his hands, the lines on them, the exact cut of his hair, the way the skin around his eyes would crinkle. The way he SMELLED. Now that he has started to remember, he can't stop it. It's there and it haunts him.

He dreams now. He dreams up memories that had been full of dust until they are shiny again. He dreams of warm, broad hands which are actually quite rid of anything relating to elegance but just so real and soothing for it that he never wants to part from them.

He betrayed you. He did not want you.

But he had tried to stop the wizards who had been killing Credence…

Because he wanted to USE you, like he had used you before. Not because he wanted you but something you could do, might do. He wanted you like a gun, nothing more!

He felt the magic in him boil. When he woke up, he saw slithers of black smoke crawl over the floor, the bed, Newts face!

Credence pushed it down then. He treated the memories of Mr Graves like he treated the beast that was so intertwined with him, like he had treated it before he had had any semblance of control: He buried it deep inside himself and closed of any recognition until he himself was sure, that it had not been there in the first place.

*~*~*

He stopped watching girls and women like that. He would not find, what he had been looking for. He was different. He was a niffler now. He really did not need to grow up.

It wasn't like anything would be waiting for him in human form.

*~*~*

Newt was close to sobbing but he carried on, so very, very brave in his own way. Credence felt his heart bleed for him. The boy sat on a chair in the directors office and shook like a leaf. There was a smudge of blood on his sleeve and he had lost his robes in the struggle with the beast, when he had wrestled it away from that poor sod of a third grader.

Dread was pouring out of him like something palpable.

Credence was seated on his lap and tried purring to calm him down or to make him smile or to make him forget, just for a moment but for once Newt did not even seem to notice him.

I will kill her. The thought was bland and crude and just there. He had never wanted to kill someone so badly, like he wanted to kill Leta Lestrange in that moment. Credence did not remember how it had been when he had killed mother and Chastity. The senator. But he assumed that it had been wild, uncontrollable, like hunger. Rage. This was different but he still felt it cold in his bones, his magic unfurling, whispering…

Two of the professors were still talking, but Dumbledore was now staring down. Credence noticed, because Dumbledore was watching him and one of the instincts he had inquired in childhood and never gotten rid off was to notice when someone was looking at him. It normally didn't mean that good things were to come.

When Newt was excused ( for the moment) and the professors were going too, there was suddenly a voice in Credences head, Dumbledores voice. Follow me, please.

Credence stared at him and then at Newt, his shoulders dropped and the nose a bit snotty.

I do not think he needs MORE charges against him right now. Do you?

He sent a silent apology to the boy and then followed Dumbledore, who was smiling down encouragingly and then lead him to his own office. It was a cozy place, much more homey than any of the other offices, Newt had had to report in over the years.

Credence climbed up on the desk and then sat down. He didn't feel agitated, strangely. Just...calm in a way, that he did not particularly enjoy.
“I am sorry, should I make you uncomfortable.”, Dumbledore said and sat down himself, smiling, even though his eyes stayed hard. He started polishing his glasses and then put a lemon drop in his mouth, sucking on it thoughtfully.

Uncomfortable probably wasn't the right word. Nervous, maybe. Caught on the wrong foot.
“Or the wrong paw, as things are.” Dumbledore winked at him.

You are reading my thoughts. Credence growled and shook his head like he could get rid of the wizard inside his mind like that. I don't like it! Stop that!

It was so STRANGE talking to someone even though it was in his head. It took one moment and then he registered, that he was being TERRIBLY rude and he imagined a stick crashing down on him, hurting his bare arms.

Dumbledores face got hard and Credence hurried to make it alright again: I mean…sorry, Sir, for being...I am…that was impolite and disrespectful and...

“Don't worry about it.” Dumbledore tried a smile but it didn't quite work this time. Credence must have angered him terribly. “Maybe you could change back into a human? Then I would not have to read your mind to fill in your part of the conversation.”
It felt like an order to strip, like an intimate thing, the order to do something that he SHOULDN'T in front of someone.
But Dumbledore did not turn around, did not do anything else. He just stared at him and Credence knew when someone wanted something from him. It was long ago that he had seen someone waiting for him to follow an order, like he was a dog doing a trick.

Credence looked at the ground and then forced himself to change. When he was done, he was still sitting on the desk, his legs dangling. He stared at the ground and waited for a sign, that he should look up and say something. Newt was close to getting expelled for something he didn't do. Credence himself was...he was an adult. He wasn't registered. Did he have to be registered? Was it a crime that he had time traveled? He did not know what kind of crimes he had actually committed…

“Look at me, please.”

Credence looked up and into his face. He could not decipher the look on Dumbledores face. Tired, maybe.
“Sir?”

“I thought you would be younger.”

Credence frowned and then concentrated, made himself shrink and deage until he probably looked like somewhat around 11. It was hard to tell without a mirror. “Better?”

Dumbledore stared at him. His eyes had gone big behind his glasses. “This is...fascinating. How did you do that?”
Credence blinked. Slowly. Dumbledore looked at him with an expression that was that of a very curious child. He gulped. And then he opened his mouth and tried speaking, talking to another human being for the first time in years.

“I...I can choose between being a niffler and a man, Sir. Why should I not be able to chose the age?”
“It is unprecedented! I've never heard of such a case before.” The man was beaming now, stepping closer. He looked him up and down, then frowned. “These are ravenclaw robes.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“You are not a ravenclaw, my boy. I would know you if you were.”
“Sorry, Sir...no, Sir, no I am not, I...”

There was a hand on his shoulder and Credence remembered Graves touching him like this, reassuring, grounding, but this wasn't Mr Graves, this was Professor Dumbledore and it wasn't right and he had not earned the right to be touched and – he did not notice that he pushed the man away, he just heard a crash and when he looked up, Dumbledore was on the ground, blinking up at him and all the glassware in the room was shattered.

“Oh.” Credence flinched and tried to make himself smaller, to fold into himself. “Sorry, sir, so sorry, I did not mean...I….I'll make that alright again, I...” He remembered the spell. Reparo. He remembered the theory behind that one and behind another one that was meant to put everything back where it belonged and he pushed his magic out to do something akin to that, a mix of the two and watched, while everything put itself together again.

Dumbledore blinked. He looked very earnest now. “How did you do that?”

Wandless and silent. He knew that that was...uncalled for. That it was new. That it was something that students couldn't do, just very strong, trained wizards. He was being so stupid again.
Credence started shaking and couldn't stop. He felt his eyes tear up and that was just so WEAK. He could basically hear Mr Graves admonish him for it.

“You do not have to tell me right now.” Dumbledores voice was quiet and soothing he went to his knees in front of Credence, like Newt did when he wanted to tame something. Credence felt a stab in his heart. He remembered Graves, the way he had acted, moved. Same thing. Tame him, USE him.
Dumbledore shook his head. “I am very sorry for what happened to you. I am not here, to hurt you, my boy. But I can see that you do not trust me yet. That might take some time… How about this:” He offered Credence a piece of chocolate that he took and put into his mouth, a bit sullenly but listening.

“It will take some time for Mr Scamanders case to be decided. Until then we two meet up in the evenings. I will ask you a question and you might propose a question in return. That might be it or we might go on, should we both feel like it. Does that sound fair to you?”
Credence nodded. It did sound fair. It also sounded a lot like a trap, but he tried to keep that thought deep, deep inside him, under a lot of clutter. Dumbledore was a powerful and an intelligent man. Credence knew the type. The problem with intelligent and powerful people always was, that they felt themselves so much superior to anyone else that they did not see it coming if you turned the tables on them.

“Alright then.” Dumbledore smiled at him. “What's your name?”
“Credence. Credence Barebone.” It was harder to say that name, than he had imagined. He clang to the emotions that it woke, all the times mother had used this very name to begin a lesson. There was pity in Dumbledores eyes when Credence stood up and shuffled out of the room. He was already at the door, when Dumbledore said his name.

“Credence.”

He turned around, blinking and then stared at the floor. “Yes, sir?”
“Your question. You haven't asked me anything.”
“Right.” He took a moment, as if he had to think of something and then he said: “The way you were reading my thoughts, sir...what is that called?”

If Dumbledore had expected a different question, he didn't let it show. “Legilimency.”

“Legilimency...”, Credence repeated and then turned away and walked out. He smiled, just before he changed.

Chapter Text

He found the books about Legilimency and Occlumentic pretty soon and after a first careful skim he was sure that Dumbledore was secure in the knowledge, that he wouldn't be able to master it. There was a lot of theory behind it, it was complicated and if he did try something, Dumbledore would know in the evening when they had their little chat because it was impossible to learn something like that in a few hours.

It was quite neat, that Credence didn't have to be bothered by something as petty as time.

He stole the books, took them away and then, after a few hours had gone by, he turned time back. Effectively, he read for days, just stopping to steal a meal out of the kitchens or to take a nap somewhere.

He did not even know what to do with this knowledge yet. He just knew that he did not like Dumbledore having the upper hand. It was something that he would never let anyone have ever again. He could not trust, especially not a man like that with warm words, kind eyes and way too much cunning. People tended to underestimate Albus Dumbledore, to forget that he was a very powerful wizard. Credence had watched them sometimes, talking to him, talking down to him for a moment and then remembering, turning white sometimes, mumbling… Fools. They clearly were all fools and Dumbledore was enjoying this most of the time. He did it on purpose, that was the thing. But Credence would not fall for that.

No more.

Actually, Legilimency and Occlumentic were areas of magic that fit nicely into his way of doing things. Most of the time he had to make accomodations, because he did not use a wand, but not this time. This would work quite nicely just like this.

The first person he actually tried Legilimency on was a Hufflepuff third grader with pigtails. He had a migraine after a while and had heard nothing but white noise. He turned back time, slept, tried again. When he was finally able to glide into a persons mind, he decided to take a break. He found a crying Newt in his bed and shuffled close to him.

“And...where...ha-ave….you….been?” Newt stared at him, hiccuping.
Credence stared back and then offered him a golden spoon he had snitched out of the kitchens. The boy started laughing and pressed him to his chest, burying his nose in his fur. “They will kick me out, you know?”, he said after a while. There was something like wonder in his voice and hurt. Credence prodded at his mind, as gentle as he could. All he could see was despair the feeling of being lost. His mother might cry. Theseus would be disappointed. But there was also light, the fickle hope, that Leta would see this gesture as something grand that she would see him in the way he so desperately wanted her to: As more than just a friend.

Credence sighed. He would never understand these feelings, these dreams and wishes.

(The memory of Mr Graves was there, of these stolen moments, of nights passed with thoughts of the man while Credence lied on his cot, shivering, hungry, miserable, trying to fight the beast inside him. Yes, the memory was there, but Credence buried it so deep that even Dumbledore wouldn't have been able to dig it up. He had room, deep down there. There was a big, empty cage and all these things fit in just nicely.)

For the moment he gave Newt all the comfort he could, before he relived the day yet again.

*~*~*

“Alright.”, Credence said aloud and rolled his shoulders. Alright. This would be so...strange. But he really had no other option. He could use legilimency now, he just needed occlumentic even more.
He positioned himself inside the room and then waited. It took two minutes for the door to open and a person to enter, looking exactly like Credence. BEING Credence.

“You're late.” Credence laughed, albeit a bit histerically. “I did not think you could be late time-travelling.”
“This wasn't funny saying it. Hearing it really is pathetic.”
“Great. I'm a prat.”
“Don't be too hard on yourself, you hardly have any possibility to socialize.”
He grinned at himself, a child playing make belief in front of a mirror. The next moment, he felt something tickle at his mind and he new that his future self had started to use legilimency. He tried to keep himself out.

Well. Let's try to kick you out.

*~*~*

“Hello Credence.”
“Professor.”
He felt better in his skin these days, even though it was a bit strange to don the face of a firstgrader in front of Dumbledore. It felt like he was trying to deceive the man and like Dumbledore knew it too. After a moment, Credence shook his head and made himself look like he had back in the days, way before he had become Newton Scamanders Niffler. His robes did not bear the colors of Ravenclaw this time though. That felt like something to give up, like a lie he had been telling himself but that would have been pointless and childish in front of the professor.

Credence found that he was cross with the man for that. He had liked the lie. He had liked whatever he had been able to tell himself when he had not thought about it too closely. This though, these past weeks or months, that had been one day in reality, had felt like the lie had shattered around him. He was back, out of the land of fairy tales, back in the world where he had to be sneaky to survive.

He looked down and found, that he had the scars on his arms. The signs of his mothers lessons had not come with him before, left behind like old clothes.

The world is not full of wonder and fairy tales., he told himself. It's a harsh world and it is hostile. It is out to get you. It is even out to get Newt.
Newt was the epithome of goodness. Credence had come to the conclusion that there was not one bad bone in this boy. Everything his mother had ever told him about the wickedness of witches was naught, because Newt was a witch, a wizard and he was SO GOOD that it was hard not to hate oneself while being close to him.

Dumbledore was different.

Credence did not want to be used. He knew by now that that was, what Grave had wanted from him. He knew, that he was powerful, that he could do things, that wizards normally could not do and that knowledge had haunted him years back. He wasn't just different from humans, from muggles or no-majs or whatever the were called, no, he was a freak even under his own kind. Not just because he had killed back in the days when the beast inside him had been uncontrollable, but even now. Being an animagus. The time travel in itself was…he had not found anything in the books about ANYONE ever doing that without probs before and he also had not found any references to wizards occupying the body of animals after they had died.

Having power wasn't something that made him more secure. Mother had said a lot of things that weren't true, but some things had been true indeed and Credence could still taste the words on his tongue. Power, given to the undeserving, was just potential for disaster. He could use it for himself and he would tumble down into hell even faster, than he was already headed. He feared what he would do, once he was accustomed to just being ABLE to do things. He remembered the people of New York, he remembered Shaw and his father, men with power who spit on the likes of Credence and his 'siblings'. That wasn't something he wanted to become himself. Never. He also did not want to… Mr Graves had discarded him. He had thought him useless and there had been such distaste in his voice and when he had learned that it was Credence, who… He did not want to be used. He did not want to question each nice word, each gesture, each touch.

(He could not forget the touches. He could not forget Mr Graves hands, he could not unfeel his breath on his skin, his warmth. He could not forget how he had healed him. But he COULD ignore it and he could make sure that it would never happen again, that no one would use him like that.)

He knew, that he did not deserve people to be nice to be him. Newt was nice and warm, but Newt thought that he was his pet and Newt was nice to everyone. It was in his nature and had nothing to do would Credence and WOULD never have anything to do with Credence.
Mr Graves had been nice to him, so he could make him do his bidding.
Dumbledore was nice to him, because he knew something was up. Because he knew that Credence had to be powerful and probably because he wanted to know what was going on with him, before he gave him away.
Credence was unlovable, he knew that. But he wasn't stupid. He learned.

He smiled at Dumbledore while he sat down and he felt a flutter of another mind against his own and redirected it with careful hands to thoughts of spellwork and shiny things.

The game was on.

*~*~*

“Where are your parents, Credence?”
“I don't know.”

*~*~*

“Leta, I -”
“Please, Newt.” She had tears in her eyes, but she was looking away, not catching his eyes. “Please.”

*~*~*

“Are you gonna take Newt away from me?”
“I did not know that he was yours to keep. But I don't know yet what to do with you. How long have you been with him like this?”
“For 9 years.”
“That is a long time.”
“Is it? Time's relative. At least that's the theory among the muggles. One theory. Quite popular right now.”

*~*~*

“How old are you, Credence?”
“That's...quite a difficult question.”
“No. No it is not. How old are you?”
Credence did not want to lie. Lying would be bad. It was marked as a sin, written so deep into his bones that he could feel it whenever he even thought about it. He was afraid that lying might waken mothers ghost. But he was also quite sure that he would not be allowed to return to Newts side, into the common room, the boys bedroom, should he tell Dumbledore, that he was a grown man, close to his thirties. He thought about America, about NewYork. It was 1913. That made the Credence in America...there was a Credence in America right now. A very, very young one. He tried to remember, but couldn't conjure any memories of that time. Maybe he could...go there and...save himself from…

He stared down at his hands. No. That probably wouldn't be wise.

“Did you ever feel utterly powerless to prevent something bad from happening?”
It wasn't his time to propose a question, but there must have been something on his face, because all Dumbledore did was putting a hand on his shoulder, kneading it for a moment in a reassuring manner.

Credence flinched and was in the back of the room in the next moment, a niffler again.

Dumbledore stared at him like he had hit him. He did not ask him to change back, but he put cookies on a plate and on the ground and – after a while – he put some coins close to them. Credence revelled in the simplistic mind of the niffler, grabbed the coins and let them lull him back to something akin to composure. He did not change back that night though.

*~*~*

“Leta...I do not understand, why -”
“You are expelled, Newt. They will force you to leave soon and I...” She sighed and shook her head for a moment. “I really can't, you know? I can't look at you and know that you will be gone and that it's my fault. I just...it hurts, Newt. Too much.”

When she was gone and Newt just stood there, utterly alone, Credence could not help but think that he had never seen someone as self centered and egoistic as Leta Lestrange.

*~*~*

“The expulsion won't be enforced.”, Dumbledore told him, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.
Credence could not help the smile spreading on his face and turned his head away instead, looking through the things on Dumbledore's desk. He knew what would come.

“You have to stop living like that Credence.”

“I can't.” He probably should tell him that there was another Credence Barebone, living in America and that he could never, ever find out about THIS Credence here. Because Credence had not known and if he were to know now than that would be...paradox. The books were fuzzy on this subject, but Credence was pretty sure that the world would turn against him and that that just would not happen. That something terrible would happen to HIM should he try.

“My boy, I am deeply sorry, but neither can you continue to live as a niffler with Mr Scamander.”

“Is it not 'proper'?”, he asked, even though he knew that that wasn't the problem. Maybe though this was a chance. It could be a chance. Maybe if he told Dumbledore everything, the man would help him. He could train him. He was the teacher for transfiguration and he was fascinated by Credences animagus form, even though he thought, that the niffler was said form.

He opened his mouth, just when he happened to come across a photograph, put between scrolls and old books. It showed two boys, maybe 15 years old, trying hexes on each other. One of the boys might have been Dumbledore. The other one had blond locks and eyes in different colors. He laughed. It was a captivating young fellow. He swirled his hand for a spell.

“Credence?”

Credence stared at the photograph. The blond wizard poked his elbow out just so while perfoming spells.

“Credence!”

The blond wizard smiled. Triumphant. Calm. He smiled at the other boy and he used a spell again and the way he moved…

“Credence -” A hand on his shoulder. Betrayal. BETRAYAL.
Credence was on him the next moment, pressing him to the ground. Dark mist swivelled around him, made it hard to see, but Credence did not NEED to see, not with his eyes, not now and he plunged into Dumbledores mind, while the dark mist roared around him, all that power that Graves had wanted and he would notice him ANYWHERE and in any form and HOW did Dumbledore know him what had he told him, what where they planning, how could they have played him AGAIN???

There was no finesse. It was barely legilimency. Just storming in, searching, a whirlwind of power and mist and purpose. He found the memories. The knowledge. The emotions. He found Grindelwald. Gellert. Gel. He found desperation and love and determination. He found the core of the man Dumbledore was and the core of everything that Grindelwald was and might have been. He found himself – mystery, potential, an adventure that the gryffindor had not been able to put aside, a child in need – and he found no knowledge of a link, he found questions, no answers, theories, not plans to destroy, to harm.

Credence stumbled back, out of this mind, out of everything and he pulled with him all the memories about himself, he pulled Credence Barebone out of there and stumbled back and changed, pressing himself ashamed into a corner of the office and hid every thought behind a wall.

Dumbledore blinked and looked around. “Blimey...” When his eyes caught the niffler, he smiled. “Hey there, little guy. How might you have gotten in?”

Credence squeaked and ran past him, back to Newt.

*~*~*

He did not eat for a whole weak. He did not deserve food.
He did not change into a human for the rest of Newts time in Hogwarts. He knew he couldn't look himself in the eye.

Chapter Text

It became harder and harder to not change back and just TALK with Newt. There was so much that Credence wanted to tell him, there were so many questions and there was just...he wanted to hug the other boy sometimes. The man, he had become. He was so proud when Newt got promoted again and again and he wanted to hold him close when Newt got wind of Letas engagement.

But he couldn't. What would he have said? And Newt had not known him. Would not know him when he would be in New York. Credence could not risk it, he knew that and he came to the conclusion, that this was his punishment for all his sins, for mother and Chastity and Shaw (and maybe for the thoughts about Mr Graves, but that could not be as bad, could it?). Newt was the only friend he ever had and he could not even talk to him.

When Newt got offered the chance to write a book and spend his summers travelling, Credence went out and stole a notebook in a muggle shop. He enchanted it, so that it would never be out of pages, just grow according to everything that was written in it and put it on Newt's bedside table, a letter attached to it, that whished him adventures and all the happiness in the world, signed by 'a friend'. Newt had the theory, that it might have been Dumbledore who had gifted him with the book and Theseus agreed. It depressed Credence even though it should not. A present was for the person gifted with it not for the one who gave it. Newt enjoyed it well enough but Credence could not help the longing.

Seeing the world did not help much, not in Credences mind. It just meant that there were more creatures. In the beginning he was full of wonder, sure but then there was some kind of bitterness when Newts case filled up and he himself was pushed down there, when the bowtruckle started to occupy Newts pocket.

Credence was just one creature more.

*~*~*

“I am so very, very sorry, I do not know how he got loose again...”
“Really Scamander.” Shacklebolt shook his head and pocketed his very fine and very shiny pocket watch – an artefact to see things that had happened at some point at the place you stood at. Crude magic, but Credence had liked it nonetheless and well. Shiny was shiny. “You should just get rid of him. Give him to the goblins or set him free, by Merlins balls!”

Newt spluttered more apologies and then walked away, craddling Credence close.
“Seriously...I am starting to believe that you are acting up because you want my attention!”, he muttered darkly.
Credence tried to blink innocently.

*~*~*

Newt was often cross with him these days and it send waves of shame through Credence, but he couldn't really help himself. Neither did he want to, particularly.

He wasn't a good person, he knew that. More than that though, he was lost. He knew that he was being ridiculous. He was old now, at least he could not think of himself as a child, it would have been absurd. He was old, he had – somewhat – went to school, he had read a lot and he was powerful. He had obliviated DUMBLEDORE for heavens sake!

It did not help: He felt like he had lost his footing, long ago, and was now alone at the, just a vast darkness underneath him. What should he do, where should he go? He did not know and he could not bother to decide. There was Newt and Newt's way would lead him to New York, to the point, where Credence would start his future, but that did not mean anything any more, did it? What was Credence, anyhow? He could not tell. He did not belong into this world, into this time. He did not belong with witches, he did not belong with muggles.

Maybe he belonged in Newts case. Maybe he was just another creature, one, that had no natural habitat, where it could be set lose.

But when Newt talked to him, noticed him, he could forget these thoughts for a few moments. So he played niffler and tried to lose himself in it. He nearly succeeded.

*~*~*

The first bodies were on an altar, when they found them, ready to be thrown into a big fire. They had the marks, marks Credence remembered even though he had thought that he had forgotten doing these things even back then when he had done them. He had escaped the case, like he often did and now he climbed up Newts coat and pressed his cheek against the wizards.

Newt stared down at the faces, the marks around the lifeless eyes. The words rolled out of his mouth, his voice heavy. It seemed that the translator charm had problems – at least, his voice sounded much more emotionless, than Credence believed Newt capable of being.
“What happened here?”, he asked the muggles around them. They just shrugged.
“Illness.”, they said, guessed. One woman mentioned curses and bad omens.

Credence remembered, when Newt had learnt about obscurials for his tests. There hadn't been much information in his books, but there were theories and pictures of how the victims were marked, theories about how people became obscurials. When Credence had read about how old they seemed to get, he had closed his eyes. The book had spoken about abused children, victims themselves. Credence hadn't been abused, you really could not call it that. Mother had been...rigid. Righteous. It had been necessary. She had loved them all though. She had wanted to save them all. She just had gotten it wrong. She had never met Newt or his family or maybe even Dumbledore.
She WOULD never meet them. She was still alive. Now.

Maybe most people would have forgotten about the pictures of victims of something that should be extinct, but not Newt. Newt remembered these things, always would.
“What did these people do?”, he asked, closing their eyes. He seemed lost and steady at the same time. He was a fighter, just like Theseus. Credence was sure, that Newt would have been a good Auror. Well. No. He would have been awful. He did not believe in rules, unless they were etiquette when meeting a creature. But he would have been competent.

When the woman who had muttered about curses answered, Newt gulped hard enough for Credence to feel it.
“They were circumcisers.”

*~*~*

They nearly missed the village. Looking back, Credence wished they had.
It were just a few huts and Newts compass that he had tried to use to find residual magic and the obscurus did not point at it, so Newt had wanted to keep going. But Credence had felt it. He had felt like call to like, a vibration, a memory… He had a bad taste in his mouth and when he looked down at himself, his paw was oily for one moment, surrounded by black, thick mist that stuck to his fur in perls in rivets.

Credence escaped from the case and started to run, a screaming Newt on his heels. He ignored him and ran on the place between the 7 huts and then just...stopped. He stopped because he realised that it was too quiet. He stopped because he saw the cuts in the huts and the blood in front of one.
Newt stopped right beside him, panting but with a haunted look in his eyes. He did not say anything, when Credence climbed up into his coat pocket.

It took a while for them to hear the crying.
Credence heard it first and hoped, that Newt would not and just go. But he did. He cocked his head, looked around and then walked against the wind, over to one hut and then, after a short hesitation, inside.

The light seemed to play tricks on the mind. He could see the beams, reflected on sand, flickering through holes in the tent. They made the shackle shine in one corner. The shackles were small, way to small for any animal that should have needed shackling.
The girl sat in the middle of the room, between two lifeless bodies. She had tears in her eyes and her hands dropped dark oil onto the pavement. She stared at Newt like he was an angel or a hallucination. Something and she could not decide yet what exactly. She raised her hands at him.

“Tajealni waqf...” Her voice was a whisper and it was gone the next moment, when she burst into smoke and screams.

Newt raised his wand.

*~*~*

It was late at night. The obscurus was in stasis and Newt was sitting in his chair, sweaty, bloody, asleep. The girl was on the cot. She had been unconscious not so long ago, but now her eyes were open.

Credence crawled out of Newts pocket and changed into his human form.

He pushed a strand of hair out of Newts face. The wizard grumbled and turned. His eyelids fluttered. Credence pressed a kiss on his temple, close to his ear. “Dormitus.”, he whispered and watched as Newt grew still and untroubled, falling into a deep slumber he would not wake up from for quite some time.

Then he turned and walked over to the girl. In the magic light of the lamps around them, she seemed even smaller than before. Her eyes were brown and empty. She blinked up at him, unafraid.
“Hal hadih alnnihayat?”
Credence whispered “Necaustra.”

He sat down on the cot. “Hello. My name is Credence.”
“Hello Credence. I am Nuru.”
She touched his arm and he felt the magic in himself recoil, then coming closer again, sniffing. It was like he could not decide whether to be petrified or anxious or angry or joyful. He looked at her and she was just a girl but there was so much WRONG with her.

They stared at each other for a moment. Her breath came in little puffs. There was sweat on her forehead. “Are you like me, Credence.”
“No. No one is like me.” He did not know what to do with her. He did not know why they had to be here. Newt had rescued her and he had been so happy when he had managed that, so unbelievable happy and content. Credence had felt nothing but dread. The girl was bad. She was a sin, just like him. Ugly in the chore and wrong and rotten. And she wasn't like him. He felt it, since she and the obscurus weren't one any more.

He looked into her eyes. They were bottomless pits.
“You are not Nuru.”, he said, finally. He was guessing, really. He could feel the obscurus in it's stasis, could hear it whispering to him, to anyone who might hear it.
She stared at him, cringing, but not looking away. “I don't know… Credence?” Her hand groped for his and he gave it to her willingly. “Why can't I scream?”

“Why would you scream?”
“Because you are swallowing me.”

He flinched back. Only now he noticed how there were strands of black smoke slithering from him over her motionless form. She had specks of oil in her hair that vanished into smoke as he concentrated on it, called it back.

“It's alright.” She raised her arm a bit but couldn't get it very far, just let it fall back then, a smile on her lips. “I think I want you to.”

“Why would you want that?”

“Because I am wrong.” She said it with such conviction that he found himself nodding along, even though he really could not be a judge over that. “I make things move or burst. I am trying not to, I really am, but I can't help it sometimes. I made it a year since the last...accident but my parents took me to these women in the other village and...and I killed them and then my parents put me in chains and I killed them. I just… I was so afraid and it would not stop…”
“Not any more! Newt...Mr Scamander...he took the sin from you, the rotten thing! He took it out and he put it away!” It had to be true, it HAD to be and yet, yet…

“Can I have it back?”

They stared at each other and then she looked away, up, and there it was again: Smoke. Credence did not call it back this time. Nurus voice was faint and a bit dreamy now. “You always take something else too, when you cut something rotten out of something. Don't you know that, Credence?”

He did not know. But he thought about it, he felt inside and he did not know where the power ended and he began. It was everywhere. It was interwined with him, a part of him like his veins and bones.

Nuru stretched her fingers and let them dance over the smoke above her head. “I feel so empty. It is all gone. I cry but I do not feel sad. I am not afraid of you but I should be. I do not even wonder about all this…there's just...helplessness.”

Credence put a hand on her head and then pushed in, as delicately, as he could. What he found inside was a place of broken mirrors. There were echoes and pain and confusion and there were wholes everywhere. There was a vastness of something missing, something crucial. It felt like a place to own, to mend, to form. It felt like hell for someone to be trapped in with no meanings of changing it, just falling and falling and falling, endlessly.

“Credence...you are crying.”
“Yes.”
She pushed her hand against his cheek, staring at the tears on her fingers.
Credence started to hum. It was a small song, a lullaby. He did not know how he knew it. Maybe it was one of his own memories, of his own mother and father. Maybe it was one of Nuru.
He sang it and his voice was small and not made for singing but it had to be enough – for Nuru, for himself.

His fingers and arms turned to smoke. It glided over Nuru and then insider her, through her eyes and ears and nose and mouth. When the smoke pushed out again, it was intertwined with small speckles of light that became a part of Credence like the smoke did. He stopped the song, but in his head he could hear a humming in a different voice.

The girl on the bed was dead.

*~*~*

Newt was a different man the next morning, a haunted man. He wasn't broken. He would never break. But it was another burden and Credence could not imagine what it would mean should he learn, what he had really done to that girl he had tried to save.

Credence for his part stayed in the case. He did not know, whether or not he was a broken. He was pretty sure that he deserved to be, that this had been a sin even greater than the ones he had committed before, even though he did not even have a name for it.

New York was close though. The present was close.

Credence thought about being powerful and alone. He watched the obscurial in it's stasis and listened to whatever might react inside himself.

Maybe, he thought, It really will be my time to die.

Chapter Text

Credence could hear Newt whisper to Dougal, but he himself stayed down in the case and tried to get rid of the shivering. He did not even know, why he was afraid. It was so hard to even remember New York. He had seen the world at Newt's side and he had loved every minute of it. He liked being a Niffler, he liked this simple kind of being. He liked knowing, that everything would end up this way, with Newt in New York. There were just a few hours left and then it would be the present again and everything was open, up to take and Credence would have to make decisions, face the consequences and the uncertainty of the world again.
Grow up. Be a man. He did not know whether or not he was ready for that. He knew that he was old, far too old to still be afraid to be responsible for himself. He could use his magic. He was powerful. There was nothing he had to be afraid of outside of this case. Away from Newt.

Did he have to leave? Did he have to leave Newt behind, leave this life behind?

I'll just stay. I do not even have to take a look outside. I'll just stay here and wait for him to free Frank and then we can go and NOTHING has to change and I do not even have to look at anything of it. It won't be any more real, than it has been yesterday or years ago.

He held onto that decision until he could hear a voice. It travelled through the lid and to his ear and he just...he could not not go up and listen closer. He could not not look.

He could hear Newt, when he was just under the lid: “I'm more of a chaser, really.”
Credence pushed the lid a bit open and then there was that voice, he had forgotten about that voice, how could he -
“Hear my words and hear my warning...”

Credence pushed and clawed and got out, out of the case and he stared, just stared. Mother looked dashing. She was handsome and righteous and something in him had missed her and it pushed a dagger inside him to know that he would...that he would…
And he was there. He was gangly and awkward and Credence wasn't so sure, that his human form now really looked exactly like this boy, he thought maybe not, but he had also never seen himself in the light of day, nor in these clothes and...and there was Chastity and she would die, just in a few hours, she would die, he would kill her and...and the girl would be all alone. He stared at Modesty. His little sister. He had forgotten about her. She would be alone, she would be all alone come his 'death' and what then? She would go back, back into an orphanage. Or maybe the wizards would deem her a threat and what would happen then? How much of her memory would just go away?

He remembered so little about her. He looked at her and felt nothing. He knew that she had been wicked in many ways, but brave in more. Credence watched her look up at his own past self and he thought for a moment, that that might be trust in her gaze, maybe even love.

Not dying now. Not going away. Not without her. Her future wasn't decided yet, not like...like Mas or Chastitys.
He tried to remember this scene and just when the handsome woman who had once beaten submission and fear and an Obscurus into him, said “for the sake of tomorrow” he noticed the coins ahead, shiny and alluring and he remembered how he had seen the man with the red hair that day and how said man had suddenly dashed away. Ma had talked about it later on, still wondering what might have caused him to leave so suddenly.

Credence knew now.

He dashed away, for the coins and he tried to forget being sad, that his and Newt's time was coming to an end, that EVERYTHING was coming to an end.
Come on Newt. One last time. Let's play.

*~*~*

He could not believe, that Newt had allowed a muggle to take posession of his case. If he had not known, that Newt was intelligent and capable, he would have started to get serious doubts about this man.
As it was, he waited until he, Miss Goldstein (Oh, he remembered her! She had been the one who had started it...she and Mr Graves, they had both been nice and then he had started to long for affection and everything had become harder to bear and then the darkness had taken him for the first time.) and Mr Kowalski were gone for their wild goose chase, before he left his hiding place. His fur a bit worse for the wear. He looked outside and tried to decide what to do. It wasn't that much time left.

He bit his lip and then hushed away. He would...look at a few things. Indulge his nostalgia, freshen up the things of his childhood he had forgotten. Maybe steal a picture of Ma and Chastity before they would die.
He thought about saving them, but...that wasn't possible. They were already dead. They were already gone. He HAD killed them and there was nothing he could do about that. He was just visiting, like watching a movie. If he started to scream at people to run and get themselves to safety, it just wouldn't do any good.

*~*~*

How he ended up in front of the Woolworth building, he could not say. He probably should not be so indulgent with himself though. He cannot help it somehow.
He had had a busy day. He had gotten these photos and he had stolen some money and other valuables, before renting some rooms for himself and his sister to be ready for the time he would need it. He had needed to fake some ID for that and he had had to make sure to go to a part of New York, where the New Salemers did not operate normally.

A better plan – or some plan at all – would be needed soon. He wasn't really in any condition to raise a child. He knew that. He would have to give Modesty away, to a GOOD family. He would place her there, make sure that she was okay. Maybe he could go away then. Stay with Newt. Have it easy again.

Far away.

For the moment though, he was just...standing her, in the shadows. He was leaning against the wall, in his human form and he had put the darkness over himself like a cloth.
He watched the man in front of the building. Credence had forgotten how handsome Mr Graves was. It wasn't even possible to quench that thought in his chest. Not really. He could just stand there and stare while his belly cramped and something in his chest twisted. He wanted. He wanted so badly, he just did not know WHAT he wanted and it started to give him a headache.

When he saw himself appear, he remembered. It was so strange. He could not remember a lot about his family – he had barely been able to locate the church, for heaven's sake! But he could feel every touch of Mr Graves, hear every whispered word and reassurance, like he had lived through this just yesterday and not years and years ago.

It was hard to turn around and not to follow, to watch (or to replace himself there, to feel these things again). He should not want these kind of touches. He had survived long enough with the tickling and the caresses Newt gave him, the things that Newt gave every creature.

*~*~*

He was really only in the jewelry store, because he had felt bad after seeing Mr Graves and not going to him. It shouldn't be like that. He wasn't a little boy anymore and he also knew that the man was lying to him. He also did not want them to kill you...

It was just easier, being the Niffler again. It was so much easier and it was so NICE letting the shiny things get to him, make his head spin and his belly warm. He had found the perfect place for a bit of peace. Newt finding him and then playing, chasing him through it...it just made it better. When Newt pushed him down the case, he snickered and laughed and then he put all the new shiny things in his nest and...ah. Well. He blinked and sighed and then turned back into human form.

The other Obscurus was still in stasis, but Credence could hear it whisper. He felt the presence of Nuru, or an echo of her, pulsing gently in the back of his head, ready to touch the thing in front that held so much of her.

“I nearly forgot about you...”

*~*~*

He watched Newt and Kowalski leave the case, but did not follow them. Instead he kept in his nest, still so unsure whether to leave or stay…

When the case opened again, he did not expect Mr Graves to be the one to enter. Credence stayed in his nest and stared while the man walked around, wonder and excitement on his face. He followed him on silent paws, until the man turned around and watched him with raised eyebrows. Graves sank down, offered him his hand. There was a smile on his face, fond and with a tad bit of wonder. “Hey there, little guy. Who are you?”
Credence got closer, sniffed him, made sure that it was HIM… Graves laughed and put him on his shoulder. “Ah well, I am sure that Scamander boy has a perfectly ordinary name for you. Melissa or Ruth or something like that. Or are you a boy, you pretty thing, hm?” He nudged his head, petted him like a cat and Credence purred, he could not help it. “Oh, I think I'll call you Albus. You are trusting and pretty enough, hm? Maybe I'll even keep you.”

It took a moment for Credence to get over the wrong name and notice something, that made him stare at Graves with wonder and distrust: He was speaking with a german accent.
Credence was still marveling at that, when they came into the room with Nuru's Obscurus.
Graves stood and stared.
“Oh…hallo Schönheit.”(^) Grave's voice was full of wonder when he stepped forward, taking the Obscurus into consideration. There was a spark in his eyes, glee, maybe. “Ich habe nach jemandem wie dir gesucht. Wer hätte je gedacht, dass ein Zoowärter mir etwas wie dich direkt zu Füßen legen würde...”(^^)

Something on his face changed and he cocked his head to the side.

“Du bist...stiller, als ich erwartet habe. Domestiziert, vielleicht.”(^^^) His fingers touched the outside of the Obscurus and some echo of Nuru whimpered in Credence's mind. “Nicht mächtig genug. Du bist nicht das, was ich suche. Aber vielleicht wirst du genügen. Man kann sich kaum darauf verlassen, dass der dumme Junge seine Aufgabe richtig erledigt. Leichter zu führen, als Albus, um einiges leichter, aber leider auch vollkommen nutzlus. Ein Unfall der Natur, ohne jedwede Magie und mit viel zu großen Ambitionen.”(^^^^)

Credence ignored the chatter in a foreign language (German? It was German, wasn't it? The thought made something ugly squirm inside of him.) and pushed inside the man's head, as sneakily as he could. What he found terrified him. He kept on though, discarding the images of himself (Pitiful, helpless, STUPID creature, so easy to manipulate, to use, to discard of), soldiering on, from one information to the next and when he slipped out, he shivered and pressed himself closer. He hated the fact, that the man's smell put him at ease.
He didn't think, he would be able to ever wash enough to get the stains off of himself.

As soon, as they were out of the case, he dashed off, going to look for the real Mr Graves.

*~*~*

He was afraid for Newt, he really was. He couldn't help but think about what…what Grindelwald might do to him or Miss Goldstein, but he KNEW they both would be there at the final fight so he could trust them to get themselves out of this mess. He had no such reassurance about Mr Graves.

It also should not matter.

He did not know Mr Graves. He knew Grindelwald. He knew the persona that man donned to get an impressionable, lonely boy to follow his every whim. Credence shuddered thinking about the possibilities. He had seen the look on his younger self when he had seen 'Mr Graves'. If the man had known that he was the Obscurial… He could have made Credence do anything.
He probably could have made him hurt Newt.
It was the worst possible thought. It was worse than knowing what would happen with him in just a short time: Mr Graves – no, no, GRINDELWALD – would give him the necklace. (The HUG, the hand on his neck, the cadence of his words...how they had haunted him for years and years and now he could not… It turned his stomach but there was still something LONGING for this human on human contact.) Ma saying that...that she wasn't his ma. It had hurt, that rejection. After everything, EVERYTHING he had done, he had survived and then there was this, this...and Modesty in front of him, strong and defiant even though she was scared too, but…

He blocked it out. Pushed it down. He knew what happened. He didn't to to dwell on it right now. He had other things to worry about and it was long ago, even though it was happening right that moment. There were other things. There was Mr Graves.

Credence found the motel room he had seen in Grindelwald's mind. Bayward Pine Motel, top floor, second last door on the right.
It was like he had been there before, the memories he had plucked from Grindelwald's mind fresh and slimey in his head.
“Alohomora.”
The room itself was small and it stank like a cage in the zoo. A bad cage in a bad zoo. Maybe more like a cage of one of these trafficers Newt used to hunt down. Credence followed the stank to the bathroom. There was a man in the tub, his arms and legs bound with metal. He had old wounds on his face and probably on the rest of his body too. His clothes were filthy. Credence stared at him. He was unable to see a human being. This was a creature maybe. Not like Dougal or Frank, more like an erumpent or something equally mindless.

'It' raised it's head when he came closer. It was Mr Graves face, allright. The cheeks were fallen in, there was a glaze on his eyes. Fever. He looked haggard and…furious. Not scared, oh no. He was bound and probably beaten, hurt, but he wasn't cowed. Of course not. Not Mr Graves.
“Who...are you?”
His voice was a hoarse thing, nowhere close to how Grindelwald sounded. It was probably for the best right now.
Credence did not answer. He just levitated the man out of the tub, hexed him clean and then put him on the bed.

“What do you think, you are doing? Get me out of these!”
Credence smiled. The man did not have enough power in himself to get up, let alone really enforce any thing. He tried to be intimidating anyhow.
It was the first time they met. He and Mr Graves. It would probably also be the last time.
Credence pushed Mr Graves' clothes open, ignoring the grunt that escaped the man. He had wounds and rashes all over his body. There were signs of gangrene.
“We'll need to put something on this.”, Credence said with a sigh.
Graves stared at him. He was probably too weak to actually say anything, but Credence imagined that he was all in favor of just getting him to a magical hospital. Whatever they had here, that was the American version of Sankt Mungos. But that really wasn't going to happen.

“No one can know about you for a few more hours.”, Credence said. They would not know. They still had Grindelwald with them, when they attacked him, killed him. He sighed. Newt had the right potions in his case. So...back home again for a moment. “Don't worry.” He pushed Graves' hair out of the way and smiled sadly when the man tried to stand up and failed. “It probably won't make any sense for you. But I'll get it all in order, don't you worry. I'll make it all alright.”

For one moment he thought about pressing a kiss to Mr Graves' forehead, but it seemed like too intimate a gesture. He shouldn't be taking liberties. He did not know this man.
He sighed and stood up. Case. Potions. Modesty.
Oh dear. He hadn't had so much on his plate since he had learnt Occlumency.

*~*~*

He got inside the case while everyone else was occupied with the Occamy. When they came inside then he rolled around in his treasures. In all the treasures he would have to leave behind.
It was strange, seeing Newt around these people. Kowalski and the Goldsteins. It was so long ago since he had seen Newt smile at a person. He had never even known if Newt would smile at HIM should he happen to be a person.
But this was good. Wasn't it? Newt had friends. People friends. How nice.

He quenched the darkness inside. The potions were in his pouch when he left the case (Newt and the blond girl were talking about Leta of all people) and he did not look back. Maybe he wouldn't have to leave Modesty behind or New York. Maybe NEWT would stay here with his new people friends. What then?

*~*~*

Graves had lost consciousness.
Credence put the lotion on his body and used a few healing charms. When he woke up he should be healthy enough to get out of the room, as long as Credence did not close up.
He watched the man a bit more. Even ill he was...strangely beautiful. But in his eyes had been no knowledge about him. There was nothing of the sweet seduction that had clung to Grindelwald's impersonation of him.

“I'm still a child, believing in fairy tales...” He sighed again and then stood up. He really did not have the time.

*~*~*

He was in the church, just in time to see Grindelwald enter the ruin. Credence did not watch what happened with him and his former self. Instead, he pushed some photographs and Modestys dolls and clothes inside his pouch.

He heard the slap and cringed but ran outside and hid inside his own pocket. He could not remember the building, he had to go to.

It was a strange feeling, side-along apparating like this. It left him dizzy and the fury in Grindelwald's voice and the distress in his own...it made it hard for him to concentrate.
But he swished away and into the room where Modesty was hiding. She looked so small. So foreign. She was scared and he could not remember her ever being scared enough to not also be brave.

She is scared of me. He stared at her. Her could not show her his face, she would run. He turned and watched as the walls crumbled in front of Grindelwald, saw himself standing there, terrified and awful and he knew what he must be to Modesty now.
She whimpered, forgotten by both men. He gulped. Back then...had he thought about Modesty at all? Had he? Or had he just thought about Mr Graves and himself, transfixed, egoistic and lost?

He pushed his head against Modesty's hand. She stared down on him. He was a creature like she had never seen one before. When he climbed up her leg, she took him and pressed him close to her chest.
Right now, he was dying underground. He was in the subway station and Newt was talking to him, as was the wrong Mr Graves. He hoped, that they would reveal Grindelwald, but he could not be sure. He would have to check later on though.

He stayed with Modesty, let her pet him and then pushed out of her arms and onto the ground. It was time to get her someplace safe. He made sure, that she was following him, lost as she was. Just, when they got outside, it started to rain.
Credence smelled that something was wrong with that rain. He stayed just where he was, let Modesty stumble by him – the rain hit her and something on her face changed. Credence could hear Frank in the distance.

Newt started the show early on.

*~*~*

He let Modesty alone in the rain for a moment. He knew where she would go afterwards. He would find her.

Credence apparated back into the motel room and looked down at Mr Graves. He could not imagine, what Grindelwald might have done to him and he did not really want to. He also did not want Mr Graves to tell people who he had seen in this room.

Credence brought the man to Central Park and left him there on a bench. He had magically repared the auror's clothes. Credence watched him from under his umbrella. The man looked tired and ill but still so, so real.
Credence had just died. He supposed that he deserved a bit of a treat. Before he could decide against it, he leaned forward and pressed a shy kiss on Mr Graves' lips.
“Good bye, Mr Graves. I really would have loved to know you.”

*~*~*

Miss Goldstein made sure that Modesty got into a good foster home. Of course she did. It was a good home with good people, but Credence could see that Modesty looked more lonely than she had ever been. Her family was dead. Ma had adopted her out of a big family and she still missed them. More people to miss now. And it wasn't Miss Goldstein's job to look after her. She wasn't even allowed. No-maj-laws and all.

Credence listened to the fare-well between her and Newt out of the case, ear pressed to the lit. He was waiting for them to discuss Mr Graves but that never happened. Something else happened between these two and Credence smiled to himself. Oh well. Newt had grown up. Maybe it was time for them all.

*~*~*

It wasn't even night yet, but Newt had went into his case and lied down and fallen asleep. Credence stared at him, watched him sleep and then put the blankets over him like he had done so many times before. It wasn't even like Newt would miss him. There were so many creatures in this case. And now he even had people friends. What difference would one little Niffler make?

“Good bye, my friend.” He smiled down at Newt, put the ring, he had stolen from Theseus years ago, on the pillow beside Newt. “And thank you. Thank you for everything.”

Chapter Text

He was no stranger to dreams.

When he had been young, he had lost himself in them. He had dreamed of the past and the future. He had dreamed of dragons, of knights, of the good fight. He had dreamed of fairies and magical woods.
He had grown up, of course. He had started to only dream in the night and sometimes during long and boring days when he wasn't working.

The thing was, he had always known when he was dreaming and when he was awake. He had always been sure about the ground under his feet, even when he had been on a broom, high in the sky.
But now...now he just wasn't that sure anymore. About nothing. It felt like drifting. There were times, when he...woke up. It felt like waking up, just that he did not remember sleeping. It was irritating. It made him sniff the air for something to hunt.

*~*~*

The first time was the most complete and it was the one that felt the most organic, right.
He sat on the bench in the park, staring up to the clouds dissipating. He was drenched in rain and he felt weaker, than he ever had before. The water dripped over his face. He looked up to the sky and he knew that he smiled, but he did not know why. He felt content, weak but content, like one felt on the first good day after a long illness.

He knew this feeling. This feeling of being conscious but blank, of having to take stock of where he was (Central Park), without feeling lost, just mildly...fuzzy. He had being obliviated.
It was the rain, he could taste it, when he licked over his lips.

The whole city then. He wondered who had authorized that. Had he been that idiot? Was there a mountain of paper work waiting for him?

He leaned back and closed his eyes. His legs were trembling, way too weak to stand up, so he sat there in the rain and waited. When he felt someone look at him, he opened his eyes. It was Tina. She looked sad, so sad. She looked every inch the good person who had looked the world in the eye and gotten weary over that.

That was new.

“Hello Tina.”, he said, smiling up at her under her umbrella.
“Hello, Mr Graves, Sir.” Her face was lined with intention, with the force of holding back.

He looked around for one moment, made sure, that no other auror was close, then winked at her with his right hand, smiled, till she sank down on the bench beside him and pressed her head against his shoulders, crying like only orphans could: Silently shaking.

“There, there.” He patted her head and righted the umbrella, so the rain wouldn't get on her. The sun was already coming up, but you should not tempt fate. “What did I miss?”

*~*~*

He did miss about three months. Three months that he had been in Grindelwald's 'care'. They found the place he had been kept in. They found the room, the bodily fluids. It was quite clear that he had been kept there, in bad condition. It also became clear, that they probably would not have found him in time, had he not been sitting in the middle of Central Park. They had had quite a bit on their plate. He hadn't seen this much fuck up, since he had started as director.

Grindelwald had impersonated him, imprisoned him. He had corresponded with Theseus Scamander in the time, conversing about catching Grindelwald, so there was quite a bit of misinformation that had to be cleared up.

The worst part actually was, that the man had also imprisoned his house elf. Alfie was now on vacation, even though he had protested loudly and Graves was left with the task of getting himself dressed and caffeinated in the mornings. His leg would probably never be the same, but he would survive a bit of stiffness. It would work as a reminder to not let himself get taken by homicidal maniacs again.

He was Piquerys right hand man. He was a Graves. He had to be better than this.

*~*~*

“Who are you?”
“No one important.”
“Really?” He huffed, a tad bit annoyed. “Marvelous. I've never met anyone who hasn't been important before.”
The boy stared at him. His pupils where dilated just a bit and why would that be?

*~*~*

He had been accused of being a lot of things and most of them had been accurate. He was a hard man. Hard to please, hard to be around with for a long time and he didn't make it easy for his people. He made them WANT to please him, so they would try harder and harder and harder.

But he had never been a liar. Not to himself, not to other people.

He had told Tina once, when she had been still a student at Ilvermorny, that orphans made the best aurors. “Nothing to lose.”, he had told her. “And loyal to any cause and family they find, much too thankful for any scratch of kindness.”
“Are you telling me, that you are manipulating me?”
“Yes. That you do not care just proves my point.”
She had smiled then, even laughed, like he had made a joke. Like he would ever joke about aurors. He had known, that one day Tina would be willing to give her life for him, for the cause. He had also made sure that she would know, that he might actually use that.

Now though… Now he left sometimes. He left in his lunch breaks and Tina would ask him what he was up to or Pickery asked and he would say “Nothing much.” Or they asked whether or not he was okay and he would say that he was peachy, just niffed about the whole situation. It both felt like a lie.

He went to the bench, to his bench. He went there, because he thought, that maybe things would get back to him, some explanation that he couldn't find in any other way.

The thing was, that his lunch break would be over and he would feel like waking up, blinking up to the sky.

*~*~*

“I took your advice, regarding my sister. I think it's helping, so thank you.”
“I don't know, what you're talking 'bout.”
“I know.” The boy smiled. There was something in that smile, that made Graves lean forward, take him into consideration, from head to toe.
“You are an orphan.”
The boy blinked, then cocked his head to one side. “Do I seem that lost to you?”

*~*~*

He sighed deeply over the papers in front of him.
“Swooping evil, Tina? Really?”
“It's what it's called, Sir.” She had that smile on her face that showed, that she was thinking about Newt Scamander. It had been a few days since the man had boarded a ship, a few days left till he would be able to send an owl or receive an owl.

It was hard on Tina. The girl had never been in love and she didn't know yet that this was what it was. Percival watched it with something akin to the anticipation one might have while watching an odd play or the little sister getting her pigtails pulled.
He shook his head. “I must say: Paperwork has never been this amusing. It would be better if there just weren't so much of it though. It's as if you lot want to force me to be inside.”

There was silence for a moment. Tinas poker face was as goddam awful as it had always been. Percival sighed deeply, closed the folder in front of him and then looked up at her. She was even biting her lip, Dyers Curse…
“Tina.”
“Sorry, Sir.” She sighed and then looked him in the eye, as brave as she ever was. “You have to understand...you've been a captive for a long time. And you won't take a vacation.”

“Well, I wouldn't want to sit around and think about it all day, would I?” He stood up. “I can't remember any of that. And my leg might not be as good as it once was but I am not about to become a keeper for the Gargoyles, am I?”
“Sir -”
“I know the procedure, Tina. I put it in place. That does not mean that I have to like it, does it?”
“When do you ever like anything?”
“True.” He huffed and put his coat on.

“Where are you going?”
“Lunch”

“It's not healthy, you know?”
He looked at her, eyebrows raised. She had the grace to blush a bit and then keep staring at him. One day she would make a fine right hand. But that day was not here yet.
The problem was, that she cared too much. It was good for a lot of things. It gave her heart, ambition, integrity. But she had not yet learned to tune it down, to make it something to use, to harness and push to side if needs must.
She scratched her cheek. “I followed you once. I know you're going to the bench in the park. The one, where we found you.”

He turned his lips up but did not let the smile catch his eyes. “It's a good bench, Tina. Have a nice lunch. Afterwards you can explain to me what exactly a Niffler is.”

*~*~*

“I wish I was like you. Not afraid of the future.”
“Who says I'm not afraid?”
“Are you though?”
“No.”
“Thought so. You are always so sure. You stride through this city with purpose and determination. You know your place.”
He was silent for a moment and he looked at the boy beside him. The boy was looking up to the sky. He had snowflakes in his dark hair and in his lashes. His skin was so white, it made him look like something that belonged underwater.
“You watch me?”
The boy blushed and Percival chuckled, closed his eyes. “Don't worry. I don't mind.”
He wasn't surprised when he had the feeling of getting dizzy and fuzzy, waking up and losing the dream on the way.

*~*~*

The great time of memrisy was long over. Living artpieces, made of memories. It had been quite on vogue when Percival had been a child. His mother had loved it and she had participated, lend memories to artists who used scratches and bits of it to make something new and marvelous out of it. They had some of these pieces at the house and it was the reason, that he still knew people of the trade.

“You're trying to be a memryst, Percy?” Leon Frey was an old man, frail in a lot of ways, but his fingers were nimble and sure and his eyes still had that spark, that made Percival careful, looking out for trouble. “Collage technique…always a favorite of mine.”
“Not quite. But it's a personal thing.”
“Hush hush, I know. When isn't something hush hush with you?” He started rummaging in his drawers. “You're in luck though. I've got one in top shape. Aha!” It was a penchant, small and copper, with amethysts put in. When Percival took it in his hand, it started to glow for one moment. A sigh and it became glass for a moment, showing this scene, the old man, the flowers on the wallpaper.

“You know how it works right? Unreliable little thing, like art should be. It will collect snatches, little moments. You cannot control which ones.”
“That's quite alright.” He let the light catch on the copper and grinned. “Snatches are all I need.”

*~*~*

He layed in bed and revised the memorie snitches before going to bed. Day after day. There were small moments of Tina smiling or her sister bringing tea and hugging her when no one thought they could be seen.

Snowflakes on a band, near a subway station. The singer was a young woman with bright eyes who skipped and danced a bit.

His own foot, a whole in the sock.

Red, looking pissed.

Percival actually thought about trying his hand at being a diletant memryst. It made him smile.

But of course, the important thing about this whole thing was something else. It took a few days before he had the first glimpse: The bench in the park, a boy on it. More a man, really, his hair black, the skin white and something like wonder on his face.

Credence Barebone. He had seen the pictures they had by now, of course. He also had read that boy was dead. But instead of being dead the boy visited him on a bench, talked with him and then obliviated him.

It was probably something he should report.

Percival stared up at the memory, at Credence Barebone looking lost and haunted. He put the penchant to his lips and then looked at the files on his night desk.

Of course...Percival had always had his own ways of aquiring assets.

*~*~*

“Hello Mr Barebone.” He looked up, when the boy sat down beside him, his hands between his legs. Credence stared at the ground, still a shy, beaten kid. The boy flinched and scratched his head.
“Credence...Credence is okay, Mr Graves. Just Credence.”
He looked at him and cocked his head, watching the boy, taking stock. “You do not take me for him. It is not that he called you Credence and that's why I should.” No. The matter of the fact was, that Credence was an orphan.

“I'd really appreciate it, if you would stop obliviating me, Credence.”

The boy flinched and stood up. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I am just -”
Percival put his hand around Credence's arm.

“Look at me, boy.”

It took a moment but then the boy looked at him. He was biting his lip and shaking all over like someone who had been caught with the hand in the cookie jar and expected to be beaten to death for it.

Percival smiled up at him, the smile that he had been told resembled a mix of a shark and a Jane Austen hero. “Will you let me use you, Credence?”

Chapter Text

He fell from the bench. He could not say later on HOW that had happened exactly, but in the one moment he was beside Mr Graves and the next one the man said...said...that and Credence blinked and was on the ground, staring up, not saying anything at first.

Mr Graves grinned, obviously amused. He looked up and then closed his eyes, sighing. “Close your mouth, boy. Something might fly inside.”

Credence closed his mouth. Really, there wasn't much else to do. He just...what could you SAY to that? He wasn't blushing but...he remembered Grindelwald, he remembered standing in that building and realising, that the man had never cared for him. He remembered later on, when he had thought about it, when he had come to the conclusion, that the man just had wanted to use him as a weapon.

“Like a weapon.” The darkness swirled inside him. He could hear Nuru whisper in his mind. There was black smoke in front of his eyes.
“You are a human being. Worst weapon there is.” Graves huffed and then opened his eyes. “Look at you. I did nothing and you are close to exploding. You are YOUNG and powerful. Bad combination.”

He wasn't young. At least he wasn't as young, as Mr Graves believed him to be. He probably hadn't grown as much as he should have but he had a good grip on himself. Most of the time. There was something about NewYork, something about Mr Graves, about the whole concept of present and consequences, that rattled him and made him cower into himself, like the old Credence had waited here for him and was now trying to take over again.

It had been an indulgence, coming here. First he had just watched Mr Graves from afar. He had thought that would be enough. Just...just to see him and to get a feeling for the man behind the face, the real man. It was just...the man was… He was everything that he had once wanted. He was sure of himself and of everything around him, even though Credence could not fathom why or how. Credence was sure of himself, but it was hard work and sometimes he slipped and became afraid again and lost. And he had had so much time to come to terms with everything but it still didn't seem enough. Not with the way the streets smelled here, not with every memory lurking in the shadows.

For Mr Graves it had been just a short while. He had been taken, kept in a cell, impersonated, his memories harvested, tortured probably…he had lost a lot of memories and still he was just so sure of everything. He walked the streets of New York, sure of himself and his place in it. It was like he was the one fixed point and everything else would have to arrange itself around him.

He was safe.
He was an indulgence.
He was an addiction, a dream maybe or an anchor. He made everything more bearable, real and unreal at the same time.

Credence couldn't say anything. He just looked down and didn't know what to do. Mr Graves sighed and then he put his hand on Credence head, combed his hair with his fingers. It wasn’t unlike the way, Newt had pettet him and Credence let himself fall into that feeling.
“I don’t want to be used.”, said Credence finally. It was one truth that he had learned about himself and he clung to it. He would not lose that little bit of knowledge. “Not again.”
“You don’t want to be abused. There’s a difference, my boy.”
“I am not a boy.”
“Isn’t that what every teenager thinks?”

Credence looked up. Mr Graves was smiling at him. It was a lopsided thing, amused, but with no cruelty behind it. Instead of telling him, that he was as old as Mr. Graves, he stood up and sat down beside the man, huddled deeper into the cloak his fur had become this time around.
They watched the park, the people flowing by. There were pigeons above, searching for a warm place to stay for the night, when the cold got worse.
“What’s the difference?”, he finally asked, because Mr. Graves was waiting for him to speak and he couldn’t bear the thought of making him impatient, angry. Upset.

“I will tell you what I do and why I do it.”
“That doesn’t sound like much of a difference to me.”
“Maybe it isn’t.” Mr. Graves stretched his legs and groaned. There was pain on his face and Credence didn’t think before he put his fingertips against Mr. Graves head and pulled the pain, pulled it out and away and let it die in the snow. The older man blinked, slowly. He looked at him, thinking. Credence tried to make himself small, looked away, at Mr. Graves legs. His trousers were made of wool and looked deceptively comfy. He would have liked to lay his head there and sleep. “That was very impressive.”
“Just a little charm.”
“Yes. I shouldn’t be surprised considering that you were obliviating me without doing much harm.”
“Much?” Had he DONE any harm? Maybe. It was possible. It was never a good idea to tinker with the head, all the books said so. You should only do it when it absolutely had to be done and even then only by professionals and you should give people things they could put into the holes you had made. He sometimes wondered if the holes in Professor Dumbledore’s head had festered, if he had poisoned, poisoned his mind, his dreams.

“You had me wondering for a while. That is all I’ve noticed so far.” Mr. Graves put a hand on his neck and squeezed. His fingers were very warm. Credence let his head fall forwards. He closed his eyes and tried to force the feeling into his memory, to treasure it and get it out whenever the world would become too much. They stayed like this. They stayed too long, but Credence couldn’t move. Mr. Graves finally put a hand under his chin, forced his head up, so they could look into each other’s eyes. He kept his other hand on Credence’s neck, kept him floating. He hadn’t been touched like this in…never. Not since he had been his original self, human and lost and clinging to Grindelwald.

He pushed into Mr. Graves mind, like he would have ripped of a bandaid. It needed to be done and he knew it would hurt, but… He needed to see, what he should have seen in Grindelwalds mind long before it all came to head. Long before his own ignorance had killed mother and Chastity.
He saw himself, just in a way, that he had never before. His pupils were blown, he was trembling and his skin was turning a soft shade of blue in the cold.
In the eyes of everyone else, he would have looked like prey. Grindelwald would have seen prey. But Mr. Graves mind didn’t offer that interpretation. Instead… I will make you glorious.
There was no doubt, nothing, and then – a flicker of irritation and Credence was pushed out, with a soft kind of force he could not resist.

“I will have to keep my guard up with you, won’t I?”
“I’m…I’m sorry, Mr Graves, I…”
“Would do it again. So you are not sorry. You are just worried, that I’ll be angry.”
Credence looked away, nodded, then let himself be forced around again, so he had to look at Mr. Graves face. He was such a handsome man.
Mr. Graves grinned, as if he could read Credences mind. Maybe he could. Credence blushed, but didn’t try to look for a presence in his head or to push him out.
“Here is, what’s going to happen, Credence.”, said Mr. Graves in a voice that was made to declare facts. There would be no way to say no him. “I am going back to work, because I have to, but I’ll get off early. They will be ecstatic about it. I’ll come here and you’ll be here. I will take you back to my place, where it’s warm and I will feed you, because it will make you pliable, put you in a good mood. And then I’ll tell you exactly, what I want to do with you. If you have any objections I won’t be able to force you, will I?”

Not with magic or force. No. “It seems like you are forcing me to do this.”
“Am I?”
He was. And he wasn’t. Credence bit his lip. He wished he wouldn’t feel so young, so insecure, so floating. Whatever he did now, it had consequences. Going with Mr. Graves would change what was going to happen. The future wasn’t set in stone, not anymore. What if he killed Modesty with this?
“Let me tell you a secret, Credence. All orphans want to be adopted. They yearn for someone to come and take them and make them feel special. There is no shame in it. I say that this is what’s going to happen, not because I will MAKE you come home with me, but because I know that you want to.”

Credence started shivering. He remembered Ma’s sermons, he remembered her words and her fears and he remembered how he had stood in Hogwarts and watched the girls and the teachers and asked himself who would ever be tempted to sin by them. He understood now. There were many sins and the devil knew which ones to offer you. Some things you could not refuse.
“You are as bad as him.”, he whispered, finally.
“Maybe. No one noticed that he wasn’t me at least.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss on Credences head. He smelled of fire and snow and sin. “But I don’t think so. I may be a monster to some, but I am good to my orphans.” When he stood up, he took all his warmth with him and Credence had to force himself, not to scream not to run after him. Mr. Graves smiled kindly at him, as if he knew. “Until this evening, Credence.”

*~*~*

Credence promised himself, he wouldn’t go. He would run. He could go anywhere.
Yes. Anywhere. The world was vast and empty and everything he knew or wanted was here or in Newts suitcase.
The thought of the world makes him crumble in himself. He has hours till nighttime and he spends them with Modesty, being a pet for her, a friend she says she doesn’t need. She has already learned that he likes shiny things and she tries to bribe him with buttons and coins. “I can get you more.”, she says earnestly and it breaks his heart because this is how they both know the world works: You have to give something, to get something. You have to be useful, to be kept around.
He takes the coins and the buttons, because he wants to and because he knows that she will think he will abandon her, if he doesn’t. He spends the day in her pocket and listens to the people around he and later – when it is close to too late – he wriggles out and makes for the window.
“Will you come back?” Her voice was soft. She stared at him, when he turned and they looked at each other. She sniffed and then seemed angry with herself for it. “I can get you more coins.”, she said. “Maybe even a clock!”
He liked clocks. He liked coins. He didn’t know if he really liked his sister, this strange creature from another life, but he ran up to her and head butted her leg, before he vanished into the night.

It didn’t matter whether or not he liked her. She needed him.
At least for now. At least for a little bit. Until she found human friends, until she had forgotten. It would be soon with her. She was strong, maybe not stronger than Newt, but different enough. She would outgrow him.

When he came to the bench, Mr. Graves was already there, smoking and waiting, looking at the sky. He did not seem bothered. Credence turned to human form, when no one was looking, at least not looking very close.
Mr. Graves turned around. His eyes twinkled. “How come I did not notice you until now?”
Credence shrugged, looked at his feet.
“That’s a good talent for a thief.”, said Mr. Graves. His cigarette vanished in a puff of smoke. “Come on, we’ll need a place that’s better hidden.”
“Muggles never notice anything.”
“They seldom notice something. And when they do, you will wish to have been a bit more careful.” He took Credences arm, led him, like a man would lead his son. Credence wasn’t young enough to be Mr Grave’s son, but he probably looked it right now. He felt young and his face tended to reflect his feelings on the matter.
“Muggle. Since when are you british, my boy?”
“I am not your boy.”
“Not yet, maybe.”
Credence turned red. He felt the heat on his face and tried to keep it hidden. He could feel Mr. Graves smirk without having to see it.

“Here should do nicely. Hold fast, my boy.” Credence glared at him and got a grin as an answer. Then there was only the swooping feeling of apparition.

*~*~*

He wanted to hate Mr. Graves house. He wanted to hate it and run away and never look back.
It wasn’t as if he had had a clear picture of his home, but he would have expected a flat and he would have expected it to be…a bit cold maybe, spartanic.
Instead he found himself in a spacious manor, that somehow managed to be cozy. He was pushed on a sofa with thick quilts on it and a moment later he held a cup of hot chocolate, smelling of cinnamon and pepper. “To keep you warm, until the food is ready.”
Mr. Graves had hung up his coat and loosened the buttons on his waistcoat. The sleeves of his shirt were rumpled up, so his forearms were visible. Credence stared at those arms and couldn’t say anything.

There were noises from the kitchen when Mr. Graves started cooking and the image of him, his sleeves rolled up, the waistcoat unbuttoned, his feet in wooly socks but not in shoes…his hair finally loosening up after the day, curling a bit…
Credence drank his chocolate. There was a cupboard with porcelain in it, cups and plates that didn’t fit together and Credence made them dance, just because he could and because it was something else to make him smile.
“Credence. Dinner’s ready.”
He closed his eyes. The cups shuddered in sympathy.
Dinner was a thick broth with vegetables and meat in it. Maybe a fancy kind of chicken soup. There was fresh bread with butter to go with it and Mr. Graves talked about his day, as if this was something they did often. He told Credence about the other aurors and all their stupid mistakes and shenanigans. Red had been tricked by a mugger. Abernathy had decided that they needed MORE paperwork. And Tina –
“Miss Goldstein?”
“Yes.” Mr. Grave’s eyes crinkled. “Another orphan. Always trying to save the world.”
He sounded kind. He sounded fond.
“Are you using her too?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know that?”
“I told her, but I don’t think, she believes me.”
“That’s the devil’s trick.”
Mr. Grave just grinned, his teeth on full display. Credence forced himself to keep looking at him, to not back down. The grin became softer, than gave way to a chuckle. Mr. Graves looked younger like that and when he ate his last bit of bread, Credence asked: “How old are you?”
“42.”, Mr. Graves answered, then laughed. “That’s twice as much as you, isn’t it?”
“No.” Credence bit his lip. How old was he? 35? 38? Maybe something like that. He had lost count of the years. “What’s your first name?”
“Percival.”
Of course it was.

Percival.
Credence tried the name in his head. It fit and it didn’t and he still tried to get his thoughts in order, while Mr. Graves was cleaning up with small flicks of his wand. Soapy water danced through the kitchen, the smell of lavender and soap pinched Credence’s nose.
His belly was full and he was warm and placid and he thought again about how nice it would be to lie down, his head on Mr. Graves lap.

“We can do that. Come on.”
Credence blinked. Mr. Graves moved over to the living room and sat down on the couch. He patted his leg and raised an eyebrow. Maybe he really was the devil or just his herold. But what did it matter at this point? Credence was worse than the devil. He was also alone and floating and Mr. Graves was fabulously real. It hurt looking at him. It hurt remembering, that he wanted to use him but that also just made him more real. It made him obtainable.
Credence layed down on the couch, his head on Mr. Graves lap and his long legs hanging over the side. It wasn’t really comfortable, but the smell of fire and snow was intoxicating and Mr. Graves was petting his hair.

“You can do whatever you want during the day.”, said Mr. Graves, his fingers on Credences scalp, his voice sure and rough from smoke. “But in the evenings you will meet me at the bench and you will spend your nights here. I have a spare room you can use. We will eat together and I will train you. I will learn, what I can expect of you. And when I think, you’re ready, I’ll use you for missions. I might tell you to get me some information or to stay in the background and provide cover and help, should I need it. I will neither ask you to hurt anyone nor that you fight unless you have to defend yourself. I won’t give you to the authorities and I won’t shackle you like a beast.”

“But you’ll tame me like one.”, Credence murmered, thinking of Newt. It wasn’t so bad, being tamed. Not, when the right person did it.
“My boy…you already are tame.” Mr. Graves kept on with his fingers in Credences hair, a glorious push and pull, like waves at the shore. It was hypnotizing. “You are one of the tamest ones, I’ve ever met, but you are lost. I’m bringing you home, that’s all.”
Credence was half asleep. Ma was screaming in his head and he half remembered the pain on his back. It was so long ago. He still remembered, but he was no longer protected. Poor Ma. She had tried her best and he had killed her for it. She would be so ashamed.
Credence buried his nose in Mr. Graves shirt. “Are you the devil?”
“Aren’t we all?”
Credence didn’t know. He was fast asleep, before he could start to wonder.

Maybe.